


An Eye on the Sky

by ChastityHollister



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-20
Updated: 2012-03-20
Packaged: 2017-11-02 06:40:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/366061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChastityHollister/pseuds/ChastityHollister
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nine months after John and Sherlock sleep together, the stork comes for a visit. Unfortunately, John and Sherlock don't want the same thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Eye on the Sky

It was after a long, lazy Sunday watching a movie marathon. Sherlock got up without a word and returned wearing his pajamas. He stretched out on the sofa and closed his eyes. John wanted to eek out the last of his restful day off, so he stayed, merely shifting Sherlock's long legs into a position where they weren't in the way. He gazed unseeingly in the direction of the tv, and let the predictable rhythm of low, suspenseful music and screaming lull him to sleep.

He woke up snuggling into Sherlock's soft cotton shirt, panicked that he hadn't heard his alarm clock (up in his bedroom) and would be late for work, and forgot all about their night in the rush to get ready.

*

The skies were getting darker earlier and earlier, and clouds heavy with rain would blow in at a moment's notice, so that was probably why he got into the habit of looking up.

And it was only natural that Sherlock's staying home and performing experiments rather than run around the city at all hours in the wet and gusty weather, and his own tendency to track in mud despite never leaving paved ground would inspire John to clean their flat from top to bottom. And organize their clutter, tossing half of it.

*

John's new habit of cleanliness and tidiness, and of looking up at the sky every chance he got persisted into the spring. Fighting Sherlock every step of the way was tiring him and making him feel out of sorts. For a man so fastidious about his bedroom and his personal grooming he was bizarrely slovenly in their shared space. John got the impression the chaos he spread around was a defensive weapon meant to make others feel unwelcome in his territory, the way his horrid screeching at the violin seemed to be.

John spent many evenings thinking deep and serious thoughts about the future of their friendship and the stability of his living arrangements, and comforting himself by looking at adorable pictures of tiny, soft puppies. And weeping sentimentally.

He probably had a vitamin D deficiency. Mild seasonal affective disorder. His body knew instinctively what to do, making him subconsciously turn his eyes up, soaking in light and stimulating serotonin production.

*

For all John's looking, Sherlock was the first to see it. Obviously.

John was putting away groceries in the kitchen, and Sherlock was doing something very odd with his violin bow and the living room window. Something that didn't involved touching the bow to the strings at all — it looked more like he was threatening to hit someone outside with it.

"What is it, Sherlock?"

"A stork. The incompetent animal has born an infant to the wrong person," Sherlock called. He sounded amused. "Shoo, you idiot!" and he waved his bow at it aggressively again.

John dropped the jar of olives. ""Don't! Don't send the stork away!"

He ran to the window and threw it open. The stork was perched on the window ledge, using its wings for balance. It still bore the child, clasped by the leg in its beak. The baby was red in the face, waving its little arms and one free leg, and starting to let out low but heart-rending cries.

John's legs felt rubbery with relief. "Here," he held out his arms to the stork, ready to catch the baby if it were dropped.

"John, it's clearly a miscarriage. Let it go," Sherlock ordered. He started plucking at the strings of his violin in a very annoying way.

The stork stared at Sherlock, and didn't drop the baby into John's arms. It looked like the stork had a strong grip, and John risked turning his head to look at Sherlock.

"Don't you understand? It's not a miscarriage. This is our child, Sherlock."

Sherlock gave John a pitying sneer. "Impossible. We're not in a relationship. We haven't even slept together. Let the stork go, and it might make its way to the parents or dispose of the infant however storks do."

"We did sleep together. After we had that horror movie marathon?" John felt the memory click into place, making a new kind of sense of the way he had been feeling ever since.

"Oh, that. We both fell asleep in the living room because we were tired. We didn't sleep together romantically." Sherlock waved a dismissive hand. "You're grasping at straws, John. I don't know why you're so concerned with this stork, it's clearly nothing to do with us."

John was a doctor, he was very knowledgeable about human reproduction. All it takes for conception to be theoretically possible is to sleep together once, with at least one sleeping partner feeling love in their heart.

"It's not ours," John told the stork. "Take it to a cabbage patch." He pretended to watch the stork flying away, until the nausea was manageable.

"Are you going to clean up the olives? I wouldn't have thought you'd want brine all over the kitchen floor, with your fetish for cleanliness," Sherlock snipped at him, after a good long while.

"I don't give a shit," John said.

He moved out within the month. The stork never visited him again. 

But Mary found an infant in the cabbage patch they had both tended with increasing frustration and worry for years, and they couldn't have loved her more if she had been conceived by them.


End file.
